1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a management device, a network system and a control program from the management device.
2. Related Art
Conventionally, image forming devices such as a printer are shared by a plurality of host computers connected through a network. An example of such an image forming device is disclosed in Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. HEI 8-314651 (hereinafter, referred to as '651 publication). In some cases, a plurality of the image forming devices (e.g., printers) as above are connected to the network. Therefore, in order to use the image forming devices through the network, it is necessary to collectively mange the image forming devices. That is, operational statuses and/or parameter setting information of the image forming devices connected to the network should be centrally managed. It is particularly important to manage the image forming device when a plurality of image forming devices are connected to the network. Therefore, recently, applications for centralized management of the operational statuses and/or operational statuses of the image forming devices have been suggested and widely used.
Recently, there are image forming devices provided with a plurality of network interfaces. When a management device obtains management information regarding the network interfaces of each image forming device, the management device typically transmits a request for the management information for each network interface through the network. Then, in response to the request, the information for each network is transmitted from each image forming device. Thus, information is collected in the management device in a unit of each network interface.